Serbian Government Office for Kosovo and Metohija Director Marko Djuric expressed concern today over additional pressure Pristina exercises against the Serbs in the north, adding Albanians cut off the channels of supply of basic life commodities from central Serbia.

Djuric told TV Pink the shortage of some commodities in the northern municipalities started and noted that Serbia will find the way to deliver the goods to its people in Kosovo.

In northern Mitrovica, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic, sessions were held yesterday where the elected mayors of these municipalities officially started their mandate after winning the 19 May elections.

Oaths were laid by mayors Goran Rakic, Vucina Jankovic, Srdjan Vulovic and Zoran Todic.

The Kosovo Appellant Court rejected defence appeal against the detention of those arrested on May 28 and extended the custody for 31 men suspected of corruption, smuggling and abuse of office, the Beta news agency reported on Thursday.

The ruling said the detention had to be extended due to the possibilities of suspects tampering with evidence, influencing the witnesses or fleeing.

KFOR spokesman Colonel Vincenzo Grasso told Belgrade daily Politika that the Kosovo police special unit ROSU intervened after shots were fired at police officers in the north of Kosovo.

“Shots were fired at the regular police after the road to Zubin Potok was blocked and a police officer was wounded. Opening fire at the police and obstructing their operations is against the law. The intervention by the Kosovo police special unit was just a reaction to that violent behaviour,” Grasso said.

On the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of Resolution 1244 in the UN Security Council in New York, the latest UN report will be presented, while Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic will point out the need to continuously review the Kosovo issue at the Council's meetings and the consistent implementation of the UNMIK and KFOR mission, report state broadcaster RTS.

Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in St Petersburg about the situation in Kosovo, prior to the June 10 session of the UN Security Council.

Dacic told reporters in St. Petersburg, where he is taking part in the International Economic Forum, that he introduced in detail the plan of Serbia on the issue of Kosovo to Lavrov, and that the head of Russian diplomacy told him that Moscow absolutely supported Serbia and that the support would be clearly expressed and at a session of the UN Security Council on Monday.

The outgoing UK ambassador to Serbia Denis Keefe said on Thursday that his country and Serbia have a complex relationship, but that the two countries share common values, the Beta news agency reported.

Keefe said, visiting the Vojvodina RTV Show Pravi Ugao (Right Angle), that British suggestion of the resolution on Srebrenica in the UN Security Council three years ago was not against Serbia, adding that the reconciliation in the region requested "honesty and open discussion, not the relativisation."

Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic spoke this morning for the RTS morning news where he said that the army of Serbia and the police remain in full combat readiness, following the Kosovo special forces incursion in the North of Kosovo. Stefanovic adds it will remain so if there are estimations that it is necessary.

Speaking about KFOR's allegations that Belgrade was informed of the action, the minister said it was an attempt to make a spin and that it was absolutely incorrect.

KFOR spokesman Vincenzo Grasso says that yesterday's action of the Kosovo special police units was regular, and that in fact the biggest threat to peace are politicians and the media.

Asked about the situation in Kosovo this morning, Grasso says it is under control.

"Yesterday there was little tension, but luckily it was in isolated locations and it was completed during the day, so I have to say that it is peaceful," he said, during the inclusion in the morning program of Belgrade based TV Prva.

Mayors of the Serb-majority areas in the south of Kosovo congratulated their colleagues from four northern Kosovo municipalities on a convincing election victory, it was said in the statement.